


How'd You Two Meet

by Self_Indulgent_TMNT



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Everybody Lives Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Other, Reader-Insert, Romance, fix-it AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_Indulgent_TMNT/pseuds/Self_Indulgent_TMNT
Summary: Or - every time you and Fred could have got together, and the time you actually did.“We went to school together”“But we didn’t start dating until a few months ago,”“I wandered into his joke shop on a whim and we ended up talking through the night until morning”It was the story you’d been telling people all evening as you made your way around the reception at Ron and Hermione’s wedding. It wasn’t wrong, you and Fred had known each other since the first week of school and you hadn’t actually started dating until a few months ago, but as a story it left a lot out. It satisfied the prying aunts, uncles, cousins and distant relations, who all heard it and started cooing about ‘young love’ and ‘sweethearts’, but you knew it ignored so much. So many years of missing the obvious and dancing around each other.Haven't yet mentioned a gender or a Hogwarts house for the reader and I will do my best not to, but writing with a female Hufflepuff in mind so there may be slips.
Relationships: Fred Weasley/Reader
Comments: 16
Kudos: 108





	1. How'd You Two Meet?

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this hanging around at the back of my brain for months and it won't leave me alone. Thought Fred and George's birthday, April 1st, was the perfect time to get it out.

“So how’d you two meet?” the Weasley aunt before you asked. What was her name again? Agnes? Cordelia? Honestly, you couldn’t keep up with all these relatives!  
You laughed, clinging on to Fred’s arm and giving a sweet smile. It was a standard question, so standard that it was cliché, and you’d been asked it at least three times already this evening.  
“We went to school together”  
“But we didn’t start dating until a few months ago,” Fred added.  
“I wandered into his joke shop on a whim and we ended up talking through the night until morning”  
It was the story you’d been telling people all evening as you made your way around the reception at Ron and Hermione’s wedding. It wasn’t wrong, you and Fred had known each other since the first week of school and you hadn’t actually started dating until a few months ago, but as a story it left a lot out. It satisfied the prying aunts, uncles, cousins and distant relations, who all heard it and started cooing about ‘young love’ and ‘sweethearts’, but you knew it ignored so much. So many years of missing the obvious and dancing around each other.

Fred Weasley had taken his time asking you out and it had been both infuriating and adorable.  
He could have done it when the two of you were still at school. When he was all winks and cheekiness and you still got him confused with his brother half the time. When you were trying to keep out of trouble and get your head around your homework and he was doing his very best to get you into it with him, in between showing off at quidditch practice and pretending not to know your name. While the two of you were low-level friends, hanging out because your best friend was friends with his best friend’s crush or whatever it was. Yeah, it wasn’t inconceivable that he could have asked you out then. And if he’d caught you on a good day you might even have said yes.  
He hadn’t, though, like you hadn’t asked him, and upon reflection you decided that was the right decision. You’d just been children, changing and figuring out how to be. Everything that had happened since then would have torn you apart.

He could have done it during the battle for Hogwarts. The words could so easily have slipped from his lips as he stood, dripping wet in the wake of your Aguamenti spell which had just washed away the man, now unconscious against a wall but who, seconds earlier, was a heartbeat away from killing the twin with red hair and a twinkle in his eye he’d always reserved just for you. If he’d asked you to be his then the chances are you would have splashed across the corridor, taken his dripping face in your hands and kissed him.

He’d actually asked you months later, on a rainy Thursday afternoon when the world was settling back into something that looked like normality. No one but Fred had been in the shop but the bell had rung signifying the door had opened and there you were, dry despite the rain and staring at him. Your name fell from his lips and Fred wasn’t sure if he walked or apparated to your side but he hugged you so tight you couldn’t breathe. He shut up the shop early, no one was coming in anyhow, and you went for a butterbeer which became two which became dinner which became drinks at his place and you’d talked from sunset to sunrise and after. Because honestly you’d been dancing around each other for years without ever knowing it and now you couldn’t bear to let each other go.

So, yeah, you’d met at school. But that wasn’t really it at all.


	2. Early Years

In your first week at Hogwarts you met a lot of people for the first time. A lot. And all of them were people you were going to grow up with, which was kind of daunting when a lot of them were nothing like anyone you’d ever met before.  
You’d been born a ‘muggle’, a stupid word but one you were growing used to, and as such had no frame of reference for anything that was happening around you.  
Yeah, you’d always had kind of weird things happen to you, something you now knew was because of your magic, but that was different to having the entire world around you not make any sense. The staircases moved; the mail came by owl; the teachers turned into cats and the students used words you’d never heard. You weren’t the only one in that boat by any means but you still felt kind of alone.  
But you were kids, you formed friendships in a heartbeat, many of which would stay with you for a long time. Two of those new friends were George Weasley and Fred Weasley. Bright haired and radiating chaotic energy, neither of them felt anything like you did. They were right at home at Hogwarts, raised in the magical world and with a dynasty of siblings ahead of them, Hogwarts was a natural part of their life and they didn’t even seem to miss a step in settling right in. And causing trouble.  
You witnessed plenty of their pranks and misdeeds, and the urge to behave told you not to encourage them, but you couldn’t help yourself from smiling when you saw them sprinting away from whatever they’d done now, splitting up only to be dragged back and punished suitably. You weren’t sure which twin was which but it didn’t seem to matter because they were both nice enough and they were always together anyway.  
But after a few months you realised one important difference between them. One of the twins was a little more outgoing and after you’d been present for enough of their ‘discussions’ with teachers and students alike you began to realise that it was this twin, Fred you gradually discovered, who seemed always to start. But it was also him who always seemed to be the one who caught you looking, sniggering behind your hand and pretending not to laugh at whatever they’d done now.  
That was about as far as your friendship went for a while. You laughed at his antics when the teachers weren’t looking and he tossed you a wink when he knew only you could see. It wasn’t exactly a friendship, you never really spoke, but it was nice. You had a similar relationship with George but you always knew if it was Fred you were looking at because of that wink.

It wasn’t until third year that you actually spent any time together.  
You’d got yourself detention. You’d added a touch too much exploding ginger eyelash to your potion and it had, unsurprisingly, exploded. Snape had looked at you through a soot-covered face and given you detention on the spot.  
You were pretty sure you’d be the only one there that evening as you sat alone with Snape, writing out the recipe for the potion you’d screwed up. Apparently you were going to write it until you knew it by heart.  
Then the door swung open and in swaggered two red-headed boys, slamming their bags down on the desks either side of yours.  
“Lines again, Professor?” one twin asked. Snape’s lip curled.  
“I had hoped to make it a week without an evening with you two”  
“Aww but we’d miss your company” the second twin said, getting his notebook out from his bag. You cast a covert eye over the cover to read the scrawled name ‘George Weasley’.  
“Couldn’t allow Y/N here to have the pleasure all by herself” the first twin, Fred, added.  
Snape’s look would have probably frozen you to the spot. The twins just grinned wider. Snape visibly shuddered.  
“You will copy up the recipe you were working on this morning. It shouldn’t be too hard considering you managed to produce an adequate draught”  
“Well naturally” Fred said. “We only blow things up on purpose”  
“Unlike Y/N here. That was spectacular, by the way” George added, turning to you. You blushed, both embarrassed and secretly a little proud.  
Snape glared them down. “Write” was all he said, before slumping into his desk and taking up a book to mark. You turned to Fred. He winked at you.

“Was that your first ever detention with Snape?” George asked as he and Fred walked either side of you when you were finally released to go to dinner.  
“Yeah”  
“Well I’m delighted it was in such wonderful company as ours” Fred said.  
“What did you two do anyway? I thought you actually behaved during potions earlier.  
“We did” Fred said.  
“But then we accidentally left a rather, ahem, shall we say unflattering missive about our dear Professor on our desk”  
“He did not appreciate our artistry and tracked us down”  
“You can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”  
“It was Fred’s idea!”  
“I didn’t hear you arguing!”  
They shrugged in unison. “Not our fault Snape doesn’t have a sense of humour, anyway.” George’s lip was out in a fake pout.  
“Besides,” his twin added, “couldn’t let you face him all by yourself, could we”  
“Wait, did you…?” You stopped walking, staring. “Did you get yourselves detention so that I wasn’t alone?”  
Fred winked at you. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about”  
“Would you two hurry up? I’m not sure about you but I actually want to eat something” George called, walking on ahead. Fred indicated in the direction of his twin.  
“C’mon, best to get away from here before Snape catches us ‘loitering’ and decides he wants our company some more”  
You blinked, still a little dumfounded. But the twins hurried off, thinking of food, and you had to run to catch up.  
From that day onwards you’d considered them friends.


	3. Later In School

Your friendship with the Weasley twins solidified over the years. You weren’t close but you could have a laugh, both in and out of lessons, and you’d grown gradually better at telling them apart. Not by sight, they were just as confusing in that respect, but you didn’t need them to speak to have an idea who was who. They behaved a little differently. You’d always known Fred was the more outgoing but he was also the louder of the two, and sometimes prone to takings things one step too far. George was quieter. Not quiet, just quieter.  
You liked the twins and they seemed to like you, too. That wasn’t unusual. Their positions on the Gryffindor quidditch team coupled with their apparent disregard for order meant they were popular boys. Sure, a few rumours had circulated that you might be interested in one of them or vice versa but it was a school! Rumours like that had circulated about pretty much everyone. It didn’t actually mean anything.  
Just like Fred’s continued habit of winking at you didn’t mean anything. Just like the way it twisted up your insides whenever he did it meant nothing.  
Fred Weasley had not had an awkward stage like everyone else. He oozed confidence just as much in his later years at school as he had since the day he arrived. You imagine he winked at loads of people. Probably did it to catch the recipient off guard, his own little secret way to mess with them.  
And yet…  
You never spoke to anyone about it. Never asked him why. You kind of hoped it was just for you.  
You didn’t have a crush on Fred. You’d had a few crushes at school, none of which had come to anything and none of which were on Fred.

The year the Triwizard Tournament came to Hogwarts thoughts naturally turned to the accompanying ball. In the midst of the panic surrounding dates it occurred to you that you might go with Fred. If he happened to ask you then you would have said yes. Going to a dance with him sounded fun.  
A member of Durmstrang you were pretty friendly with asked before you could find out. You’d had no reason to say no when he approached you one lunchtime, it wasn’t like you expected anything from Fred.  
Even so, you somehow found yourself close to him the whole evening.  
“Looking good, Y/N” Fred said as you and your partner danced past him and Angelina. He refrained from winking, much to your relief, it would feel inappropriate with someone else in his arms.  
“Not too bad yourself, Fred. Maybe you don’t have two left feet after all”  
“Nah, I’ve got two right feet. George got both the left”  
“Everyone knows that’s how twins work” you heard George’s voice from somewhere behind you.  
“Can you two be serious for one moment?”  
Fred grinned. “Course we can”  
“But not too often. We like to save it up for special occasions”

Towards the end of the night you tired of the hall, with all the dancing and screaming, so you bid your date goodnight and headed off. On your way back to your common room you heard hushed voices coming from an alcove and, peering in, found yourself faced with two red heads and two cheesy grins, swigging from a bottle of amber liquid with the label ripped off.  
“What are you boys doing?”  
“Winding the night down” one said. You assumed it was Fred but you couldn’t always tell.  
“With what I assume is alcohol?”  
The second twin grinned. “Want some?”  
“That seems very irresponsible” you said, right before dropping down and squishing yourself between them. You accepted the bottle that was offered to you and took a swig, coughing at the unexpectedly foul taste.  
“What the hell is this?” you asked, spluttering. The twins laughed.  
“Family secret”  
“Well that’s bloody ominous. Where’d you get it?”  
They exchanged looks.  
“Wait, let me guess. Family secret”  
“Not at all!” the twin to your left, the one you were assuming was Fred, cried.  
“Trade secret” George said. You rolled your eyes, taking the bottle for another swig. It wasn’t so bad the second time round.

You shared the bottle for a while, feeling the contents’ effects in a flushed face and loosening tongue. Pretty soon you noticed George beginning to drift off. Fred smirked.  
“Clearly someone can’t take his booze” he said, pointedly taking another sip from the almost empty bottle. You smiled. It was nice, squashed up in the alcove. Warm and safe. You let your head rest against Fred’s shoulder.  
“Hey Fred?”  
“Yeah?”  
“I’m glad you didn’t manage to put your name in the goblet”  
There was a moment of silence. Fred laughed uncomfortably.  
“Couldn’t bare it if I became rich and famous, huh?”  
You gave his arm a light smack. “I’m serious, Fred”  
“I’m sure you are. People can’t bare it when their friends become successful”  
“Fred!”  
George stirred in his sleep at the shrill note in your voice. Fred held his hands up in surrender.  
“Sorry. I’m not great at real talk”  
“Well, real talk, I’m glad you didn’t put your name in because I couldn’t bare it if something happened to you”  
“I didn’t know you cared”  
“Yeah, well I do”  
George let out a perfectly timed snore, it startled both of you out of your quiet. Fred looked to his brother.  
“I should probably get him to bed”  
“Need a hand?”  
“Would you?”  
The two of you clambered to your feet. Fred shook George awake.  
“Alright, Sleeping Beauty, we gotta get you to an actual bed”  
George mumbled something incoherent as the two of you hauled him to his feet, each putting an arm around him. You went with them as far as the Gryffindor common room before transferring George’s weight back to his feet and Fred.  
“This is where I leave you. My own bed is calling”  
“Yeah, well, erm” Fred struggled for words and you started to walk away.  
“Wait, Y/N!”  
You turned back. “Yeah?”  
“Thank you”  
You smiled. “No problem. Night Fred”  
You got the feeling he wasn’t just talking about the walk back.


	4. The Battle of Hogwarts

Fred and George Weasley’s departure from Hogwarts had been nothing less than extraordinary. If you had to say goodbye then watching them fly off into an explosion of fireworks in the shape of their logo seemed like a fitting way for them to do it. But without the two of them bringing joy and laughter the world seemed awfully grey.  
You graduated, went home, got a job in a bookshop and tried to ignore how the Wizarding World was falling apart. You paid a couple of visits to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, buying odds and ends to keep you laughing and always being greeted with a huge smile and a wink. It seemed their shop was the only place the darkness of the world hadn’t infiltrated, as though the boys fought the misery and danger away through sheer willpower and biscuits which turned you into a canary.  
As things got darker you listened desperately to Potterwatch, the pirate radio station which was about the only thing that made you smile. And provided evidence your friends were ok.  
When the call went out to defend Hogwarts you didn’t even hesitate.

You’d never really been a fighter. At school you’d excelled more in elemental spells, herbology and the odd transfiguration, not duelling or attack spells. But every wand helped and you wanted to do whatever you could to defend your friends, school and your world.  
Nothing, however, could have prepared you for the true horror of a battle which took over the entire castle. No amount of psyching yourself up, of justifying your place in the fight, could prepare you for the way it took over all of your senses. Dirt in your mouth; screams in your ears; the smell of blood in your nostrils. Grime was all over your skin and horrors everywhere you looked.  
You were running. You weren’t sure precisely where but you’d been told this area of the castle was poorly defended and had headed straight there. Your feet thundered down corridors you hadn’t run through since you were a student late for lessons. You slowed your pace just enough to skid round a corner.  
“Aguamenti Maxima!”  
Your brain was still processing the scene when you said the spell, having cast it on instinct alone. It was still running through the few facts that had stopped your heart.  
Two boys with red hair, one whose face was achingly familiar, laughing together. A man behind, wand raised, a spell on his lips.  
All you’d known was you had to get this right.  
A wave crashed from your wand, soaking everything in its wake but focussed on the man about to take Fred Weasley from the world. He was thrown backwards by the force of the water, smashing into the wall and crumpling, unconscious and half-drowned.  
Fred looked from the unconscious death-eater to you, realising with a sick feeling how close he’d come to no tomorrow. He wiped water from his face.  
“Aguamenti?” he asked. You stared, seemingly in shock.  
“What?”  
“I’m about to die and you go with aguamenti?”  
“I had to get it right. I’ve always been good at elemental spells and I just needed to distract him from you. I didn’t have time to think and-”  
As you spoke you’d been walking towards him, sinking against his chest and feeling his arms come around you as you began to shake. You were both in shock, only too aware that a second later and you wouldn’t have been able to react in time. The two of you stood for a moment, until a cough from the nearby Percy reminded you the world was continuing around you. You pulled apart.  
“It’s good to see you, Y/N”  
“You too, Fred”  
“I’d love to catch up, but there’s a war going on and I’m soaking wet”  
“Oh god, sorry!”  
A flick of your wand and Fred was significantly drier, and the same for Percy, who had used the time you had been clinging to Fred to secure your unconscious victim. He gazed down at the unconscious man.  
“While I can’t say it’s particularly elegant, I have to admit your technique is effective.”  
Fred looked at you with a smile. “Y/N’s always been talented. If not always predictable”  
You hated to admit that you were blushing.

You soaked half the castle that day, embracing it as a fighting technique and sticking close by Fred the whole time. It felt better to know he was near.  
When a pause to the fighting was called, however, you made your way from the hall. Someone took your arm, sat you down and started healing cuts you didn’t realise you had. Fred was swept away by his family and you let him go. They had more claim to him than you.  
When the battle was over, and everyone was taking stock, counting their loved ones and losses, you watched Fred push his way through a crowd and come to a stop in front of you. There were a lot of things you wanted to say and you had no idea what any of them were. He gave you an awkward smile.  
“Crazy day, huh?”  
You smiled back. “Just a bit”  
You were silent another moment before he spoke again.  
“Thank you. For earlier”  
You could tell he felt uncomfortable. It was a side of him you’d not seen often.  
“Don’t mention it. You’re worth saving.” He actually blushed. You smiled wider. “Oh don’t let it go to your head, it’s been a long day and it’s not often I save someone’s life, let me be sentimental.”  
Fred’s classic grin started to show through. “Well I’m glad I could make this special for you.”  
“Alright Weasley, don’t get ahead of yourself”  
Across the hall, someone was calling his name. He glanced away from you.  
“I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you, yeah? You’ll come by the shop?”  
“Yeah. I’ll drop by”  
And then he was gone. You slipped away soon after, disappearing off home, tired but pleased.


	5. A Grey, Rainy Thursday

It had been months since the battle of Hogwarts. You’d gone back to your life, consumed by the blur of getting the world back on track. It is surprising how many small aspects of life can be taken away in the darkest times, and it’s more surprising still how hard it can be to reinstate normality once it’s an option again.  
You tried to forget the dark times and you tried to forget the battle. The death and horror haunted your dreams. Subconsciously you found yourself distanced from things which reminded you. You wanted life to move on, not to dwell on what had been but wasn’t anymore.  
But there was something which played on your mind, something you couldn’t place. You put it down to trauma, to your mind being conditioned to be on edge and ready for something. Anything.  
One day, one grey, rainy Thursday, you remembered what it was.

You’d decided to do some window shopping after your shift at work and you’d headed to Diagon Alley. You didn’t mind the rain, especially with the umbrella charm extending from your wand, and it meant the street was quiet and you were able to shop in peace.  
Looking down the street you saw the brightly coloured shop front of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes and found yourself smiling just looking at it. Your mind strayed back to the day you’d been desperately trying to forget. But it wasn’t the fear and death you thought of. You remembered a head of red hair weaving through a crowd. And a promise.  
‘I’ll see you, yeah? At the shop?’  
‘Yeah. I’ll drop by.’  
And suddenly your heart ached for the twin you’d been quietly falling for since you were both eleven.

Fred sighed as he leant his elbow by the till. The rain pattered against the windows and somewhere something was letting out a high-pitched screeching noise while something else bubbled gently. Nothing unusual for a joke shop. What was unusual was that he was completely alone. But then, it was a rainy Thursday, he hadn’t really expected much more. He’d let George go early, he’d wanted to surprise Angelina by meeting her from work and Fred knew he could manage the shop by himself.  
He wandered away from the till, heading upstairs to give the shop a once-over, mostly from a lack of anything else to do. He was a short way up the staircase when the bell that signified the door had opened rang out. There was a brief gust of cold air before the door shut again and Fred turned, ready to launch into a welcome spiel. His heart skipped a beat.  
You were standing in the entrance to his shop, long coat pulled around you, dry despite the rain.  
It wasn’t until that moment, until you were stood in front of him, that he realised just how badly he’d longed to see you. It wasn’t until you walked into his shop, months after promising you would, that he realised just how badly he’d wanted you to do so, how he’d been watching and waiting every time someone who wasn’t you walked in.

“Hey Fred”  
You looked uncomfortable, shy. He never wanted you to be shy with him ever again.  
“Y/N” his voice was practically a whisper as your name fell from his lips.  
Then he was at your side. How he’d got there he wasn’t sure, but his arms wrapped tightly around you and he felt yours doing the same to him. One of you let out a sob; a desperate, broken breath of something like relief. Perhaps it was both of you.  
You clung together, both too scared to let go. For long years you’d been dancing around each other without ever knowing it and suddenly you both knew that you didn’t want to let the other get away.  
You pulled apart. Eventually.  
“What are you doing here?”  
You were surprised to find yourself trembling. “I just thought I’d drop by. Actually, I… I wanted to see you”  
Fred nodded, he didn’t know what to feel.  
“You look good”  
“So do you”  
Neither of you knew what to do.  
“I was thinking I might shup up a little early. Don’t suppose you wanna get a drink?”  
You grinned wide. “That sounds good”

You didn’t know what had changed but things had never been like this. You’d never talked with anyone like you talked with Fred that night. One drink. Two. Dinner. You were back at his place and still talking. It was like you were trying to make up for years of not being close, years when it seemed you should have been side by side.  
This was a relationship you’d been laying the foundations of for years. You’d been looking out for each other and growing fonder and fonder and by the time it finally happened you discovered you already loved each other.

George had maybe three seconds of surprise when he came home and found you and his brother glowing with happiness and babbling like excited children. Truth was he’d had suspicions about the two of you for years, long before either of you even considered it.  
The sun rose and you weren’t talking anymore. You were sitting. Just sitting, watching the sunrise. Fred pressed his lips the top of your head, an action done so easily it was like you’d been together for years.

“So how’d you two meet?” the Weasley aunt before you asked.  
“We went to school together” you replied.  
“But we didn’t start dating until a few months ago”  
“I wandered into his joke shop on a whim and we ended up talking through until morning”  
The aunt looked at you and smiled. She knew it wasn’t the whole story. The way you looked at each other spoke of years of growing together, it spoke of a connection that ran deep.

So, yeah, you’d met at school. And from that first day onwards you’d been waiting for the time to be right.  
Fred had taken his time asking you out. But then, you’d taken your time too. Neither of you regretted it. Things had worked out perfectly.  
Who could have seen it coming? All those years ago when you’d first met the boy with flaming red hair, a twinkle in his eye and a wink just for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus, it is finished.  
> I hope you enjoyed this fic, I really enjoyed writing it! :-) :-)


End file.
